Take A Stand Against Gun Confiscation Orders

As you know, the House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hear HB 4145 on Wednesday at 1pm in Hearing Room 50. (Hearing Room 50 is in the basement of the Capitol Building.)

You can rest assured that the room will be packed by a rent-a-mob bussed in by Michael Bloomberg.

The committee has announced its expectation of a large turn out and as such will start taking sign ups for testimony at noon.

If you plan on testifying, please arrive early.

Here is what you need to know about HB 4145.

This bill has been extensively marketed as “closing the boyfriend loophole.”Since it’s not the “intimate partner” loophole, or the “lesbian lover” loophole it’s clear that this bill is targeting men, men who own firearms.

Currently the law allows the state to confiscate firearms from people who are the subject of orders that prohibit them from “stalking, intimidating, molesting or menacing an intimate partner.”

Oddly, under Oregon law, “intimate partner” does not mean a person with whom you are having, or have had, sex. “Intimate partner” means the person’s spouse, the person’s former spouse, a parent of the person’s child or another person who has cohabited or is cohabiting with the person in a relationship akin to a spouse.

This bill seeks to expand the list of people who are “protected” by a restraining order to “family or household members.”What this means is that if the person who gets the restraining order against you is a “family or household member” you will now be prohibited from owning firearms.

While this would seem to make little sense, when you look at the definition they want to use for “family or household member” you’ll start to understand. Here it is:

“Family or household members” means any of the following:

(a) Spouses.

(b) Former spouses.

(c) Adult persons related by blood or marriage.

(d) Persons cohabiting with each other.

(e) Persons who have cohabited with each other or who have been involved in a sexually intimate relationship.

(f) Unmarried parents of a minor child.

You read that right. Under this bill, anyone you ever had a sexual relationship with is now your “family member” and can request an order that forbids you from having firearms.

But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is a little detail from page 1 of the bill.

On line 10 the bill adds the following language to the law:

(ii) Remains in effect after the person received notice of the opportunity to request a hearing in which to be heard on the order, and declined to request a hearing during the time period in which the opportunity was available;(emphasis added)

What this means in English is this,

If a court issues a restraining order against you under current law, you have the option to contest it to attempt to “prove” your innocence. You will most likely lose, but you have the option. However, under Federal law, if you do this and the order is upheld, you lose your gun rights under Federal law.

However, if you don’t contest it and the court has not ordered a gun prohibition, you don’t lose your gun rights. In other words, if you agree to comply with the order, no matter how false the accusations, you don’t automatically lose your gun rights.

Under the section quoted above, you lose your gun rights even if you comply.And this is the whole point of this bill and something the anti-gunners have been pushing for 15 years.

At one time they were actually pushing legislation that would allow the person who requested the restraining order to force you to contest it just so they could strip you of your rights under Federal law.

Make no mistake, this bill has nothing to do with keeping women safe. As anyone who lives in the real world will tell you, restraining orders don’t keep people safe. And this state actually punishes women who are real victims of domestic violence by forbidding them to be armed to protect themselves.

But restraining orders do provide a convenient and easy way for angry peopleto ruin other people’s lives, force them from their homes and steal their property.

The reality is that people who comply with a restraining orders are not dangerous anddangerous people will ignore restraining orders and any weapons prohibition.

But safety is not what this bill is about. Punishment and harassment of gun owners is what it’s about.

Note that nowhere in the bill is there a single word of protection for the falsely accused.

This bill is quite simply a pay-off from Kate Brown and her fellow travelers in the Oregon Legislature for the big bucks Mike Bloomberg used to buy elections.

That’s why it’s so important that you make your voice heard to oppose this bill as written.

If you can come to the hearing and testify, that would be the best thing, but just showing up helps. If you cannot come you can upload your testimony against the bill via email at: